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Welcome to Jack of Kent, the personal website of liberal journalist and lawyer David Allen Green. You can read the Jack of Kent blog here. My old site is still over at http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/. I write regularly for the New Statesman and The Lawyer websites, and you can also follow me on Twitter and Facebook. I can be contacted at jackofkent@gmail.com.

So where are we now on Brexit? We are in a fog. We are in a situation the outcome of which nobody can predict, at least with any certainty. There is no pundit, no official, no politician who knows what will happen with Brexit. In this fog, however, there are paths which are currently more … Read more

British politics is currently exciting, with resignations and the prospects of leadership challenges. But when the excitement passes, there are certain brute facts about Brexit and the draft withdrawal agreement which will still be there. * First, there will still be the mandate of the referendum result. One may contest that there was a real … Read more

On Saturday 20th October there was a march in favour of the “People’s Vote” – for a further referendum in respect of Brexit before the UK departs the EU. The march was heavily attended, good natured and peaceful. The photographs on the news were striking, especially of the sheer size. The legal tweeter and QC … Read more

One of the best stories – perhaps the best – of John Constantine, the sardonic DC comics street-mage, is Dangerous Habits (1991). In this tale the dying Constantine stays alive by the simple and sensible expedient of promising his soul to three separate demons of Hell. This means that the three demons then have to strive officiously to … Read more

We are now only a few months away from 29th March 2019, which is when by automatic operation of law the United Kingdom leaves the European Union. (There are ways that this date may get delayed, and it is even still possible Brexit could get cancelled altogether. But a delay or cancellation currently looks unlikely.) … Read more

Last week was the thirtieth anniversary of the “Bruges speech” by the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Over at the FT I did a piece on the anniversary, contending that the speech was not the start of the road to Brexit (a view put forward by a number of pundits). Instead I suggested that it was … Read more

Brexit is exciting to a follower of politics: every day it seems there is something new, and one can often swing from thinking there will be a deal or no deal, or even from thinking there will be Brexit or no Brexit. Brexit is a news event well suited to social media and rolling news. … Read more

Nobody knows what will happen with Brexit. Nobody: no politician, no businessperson, no official, no pundit, no diplomat, no thinktanker, no citizen. Nothing is so certain as to constitute knowledge. One day, of course, when we know the outcome, there will be commentators who assert that what happened was inevitable all along. But, as of … Read more

For some time, one common contention of those supporting Brexit is that the UK should prepare for a “no deal” Brexit. This preparation would, it is asserted, put pressure on the EU in the exit negotiations because the UK could then threaten to walk away rather than accept a bad deal. These contentions are all … Read more